ARTICLES ABOUT OKLAHOMA BY DATE - PAGE 3

At least 30 people across six states have been killed by a vicious storm system that unleashed dozens of tornadoes and was threatening to cause more damage in heavily populated regions of the U.S. South on Tuesday. The hardest hit states have been Arkansas and Mississippi where 23 people have been killed and more than 200 injured by tornadoes over the past three days that have flattened neighborhoods, reduced homes to splinters and snapped trees like twigs. Deaths were also reported in Oklahoma and Iowa on Sunday, and Alabama and Tennessee on Monday.

Tornadoes ripped through the south- central United States on Sunday, killing at least 12 people in Arkansas and Oklahoma and wiping out entire neighborhoods of homes, according to officials, as rescue workers searched in darkness for survivors. An aide to Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe said five people had died in both Faulker and Pulaski counties, with another fatality reported in White County. Two people were killed in Vilonia, a small town in Faulkner county in central Arkansas of some 3,800 people, and rescuers were digging through the rubble of ruined buildings looking for more victims, according to authorities there.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - An Oklahoma man was charged on Monday as an accessory after the fact in connection with the killing last summer of an Australian athlete who had been attending a state university, prosecutors said. Oddesse Barnes, 22, was the fourth person charged in the killing of Christopher Lane, a Melbourne resident who was shot in the back while out jogging in Duncan, Oklahoma, a town about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City, prosecutors said. No additional details about the charge brought by the Stephens County District Attorney's office were immediately available on Monday.

Old Hollywood glamour was in the air on Thursday as Shirley Jones , Maureen O'Hara and Kim Novak turned out for opening night of the TCM Classic Movie Festival. The fifth annual fest kicked off with the world premiere of the restoration of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" at the TCL Chinese Theatre. Prior to the screening, TCM host Robert Osborne invited Jones, who made her film debut in "Oklahoma!" at age 18, onstage for a Q&A. Jones said she had not planned to go into show business at all when was asked to participate in an open audition for the lead.

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (Reuters) - Kyah, a 6-month-old giraffe at the Oklahoma City Zoo, died on Tuesday during a risky surgical procedure being performed for the first time on a giraffe in hopes that it would save her life, a zoo spokeswoman said. A team of 12 experts assisting in the four-hour surgery was unable to repair a life-threatening condition known as persistent right aortic arch, and ultimately Kyah was euthanized in the operating room, said Tara Henson, spokesperson for the Oklahoma City Zoo. "Everyone is sad, but we were prepared for it. Still that hope was there," Henson said.

(Reuters) - Earthquakes rattled residents in Oklahoma on Saturday, the latest in a series that have put the state on track for record quake activity this year, which some seismologists say may be tied to oil and gas exploration. One earthquake recorded at 3.8 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey rocked houses in several communities around central Oklahoma at 7:42 a.m. local time. Another about two hours earlier in the same part of the state, north of Oklahoma City, was recorded at 2.9 magnitude, USGS said.

If the name Anita Hill means anything at all to you, you won't need any encouragement to see a compelling documentary featuring this usually private woman talking with exceptional candor and insight about the events that made her an instant national figure. And if you can't place the name, or want to know more, "Anita" is a splendid place to start. It's been more than 20 years since Hill, then a tenured law school professor at the University of Oklahoma, testified for nine grueling hours in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the sexual harassment she said she experienced years before at the hands of then-Supreme Court nominee, now Justice Clarence Thomas.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - About 25,000 teachers, administrators and students rallied at the Oklahoma State Capitol on Monday, calling for more money for education in the state that ranks among the lowest in per capita spending for students. Funding for public schools has decreased by about $215 million since 2008, although there are 40,000 more public school students, according to the Oklahoma Education Coalition, which helped organize the protest. "When that many people converge at the foot of the Capitol, they cannot ignore our voices," said Sheri Guyse, a volunteer at the rally and mother of two Oklahoma City school children.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - An Oklahoma City doctor suspected of molesting two female patients during examinations has been charged with sexual assault, the Oklahoma District Attorney's office said on Thursday. Dr. John Fuller, a 60-year-old pain specialist, has been charged with one count of sexual battery and one count of rape by instrumentation, it said. Fuller's attorney, Scott Adams, was not immediately available to comment on Thursday. Adams told reporters on Wednesday the charges were baseless and said, "I feel confident at the end of the day he'll be exonerated.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - A nearly 30-year-old record for Girl Scout cookie sales has been crumbled by Oklahoma City scout Katie Francis, who has so far sold 18,107 boxes by asking anyone who crossed her path to buy some of the sweets. "There's three ingredients to selling cookies: There's lots of time, lots of commitment, and I have to ask everybody that I see," the 11-year-old said in an interview with the NewsOK website posted on Monday. It took the sixth-grade student just seven weeks to top the previous record of 18,000 boxes in annual sales, which was set in a year in the mid-1980s by scout Elizabeth Brinton.